Ricochet

It’s officially SummerSlam weekend and that also means NXTTakeover. We had another stacked card for NXTTakeover: Brooklyn 4. Tommaso Ciampa defended his NXT title against his rival, Johnny Gargano. Adam Cole put his NXT North American title on the line against Ricochet. Mustache Mountain tried to regain their NXT Tag Team Championships from the Undisputed Era. Shayna Baszler defended her NXT Women’s title against Kairi Sane. To finish out the card, Velveteen Dream battled EC3. Let’s see how things turned out.

We started things out with the tag team title match. These teams come to this match with a lot of history as they’ve traded title reigns. The Undisputed Era regained them back and have had them ever since. This match was an awesome way to kickoff the special because they all delivered. Kyle O’Reilly and Roderick Strong are two of the hardest hitting guys you’ll find, plus their technically sound. Trent Seven is the scrappy veteran and Tyler Bate is the future with his amazing strength. The crowd was chanting for them to fight forever as this match had everything. We thought Seven was going to throw in the towel like Bate did him, but he didn’t as it seemed like Undisputed Era was going to retain. Moustache Mountain made a comeback highlighted by the strength of Bate and it seemed like they were going to regain the belts, but Strong came through. As Bate & Seven was going to hit their finisher, Strong hit a stiff knee to Bate knocking him out of the ring. Undisputed Era hit their finisher on Seven to win the match. Winners and Still NXT Tag Champs: Undisputed Era

Match Rating- A+: Great match between these two. After the match, Undisputed Era looked out of it after the battle they had, but the War Raiders showed up behind them. They laid both of them out and in the process, hit a sick toss up powerslam on O’Reilly.

We had a battle between EC3 and the Velveteen Dream, whom John Cena called the future of WWE. These two tried to show each other up for most of the match with Dream working on the head and neck area of EC3. Earlier in the match, Dream hit a sick tornado DDT on the steel ramp on EC3, which garnered a “Holy Shit” chant. EC3 rebounded and showed his power by a hitting back-to-back powerbombs on Dream. The pace isn’t what we’re used to with Velveteen Dream, but the crowd was still into it. The ending came when Dream hit the Death Valley Driver on the apron followed by an elbow drop to pick up the win. Winner: Velveteen Dream

Match Rating- B: Solid match, but not as good as the matches Dream had with Aleister Black and Ricochet, but still good.

Adam Cole of the Undisputed Era put up his NXT North American Championship against Ricochet. If you followed Indie Wrestling over the last several years, this is a dream matchup we wanted to see in the WWE. Cole & the Undisputed Era has been laying out Ricochet while Cole has said he’s nothing special. The match went back-and-forth to the delight of the crowd as they were eating it up. Ricochet was flying everywhere, and Adam Cole tried to keep him grounded. Cole had a couple of nice spots in the match with one of him hitting the backstabber on Ricochet after an attempted springboard. Another came when Cole hit a superkick on Ricochet as he was doing a backflip. Ricochet was going for his patented 630 splash, but Cole rolled out of the ring, but Ricochet hit a sick, twisted flip onto Cole on the outside. The finish came when Ricochet hit a hurricanrana from the apron to the floor, rolled Cole back in the ring and hit his 630 splash for the win. Winner and New NXT North American Champ: Ricochet

Match Rating- A++: Wow!!! This was a damn good match as I didn’t know who would take the L between these two popular stars.

Shayna Baszler defended her NXT Women’s Championship against Kairi Sane. This is their third meeting with Sane winning in the Inaugural Mae Young Classic Final and Baszler the next match. Ever since becoming champion, Baszler has bullied the women’s division. Kairi Sane returned after Baszler injured her, which is why we have this championship match. Baszler started out aggressive against Sane and taunting her. Sane fought back until Baszler started targeting her leg, which she worked on quite a bit. Sane continued to fight back and even locked in her own submission holds. In the end, Baszler locked in her submission hold, but Kane reversed it to a pin to pick up the win. Winner and New NXT Women’s Champ: Kairi Sane

Match Rating- B+- This was exactly how I expected this match would go. Baszler would dominate, but Sane would fight back, but I didn’t expect Baszler to drop the title this quick.

We finally had the main event for the evening. For the third consecutive special, we had Tommaso Ciampa facing Johnny Gargano, but this time it was for Ciampa’s NXT title. Aleister Black was supposed to be in this match, but he got injured making it a battle between these two enemies. William Regal made it a Last Man Standing match, so we knew it would be something hectic going down. They beat the hell out of each other during the match. They had crutches, tables, people, the barricade, announce table, the ramp and I’m sure something was left out. With Ciampa cuffed to the stage, Gargano delivered a superkick. The cowardly Ciampa, realizing his career was in jeopardy, tried apologizing to his former partner, but Gargano would have none of it. His knee exposed, Gargano rushed Ciampa, delivering a knee strike but falling from the stage in the process. Writhing in pain and teasing a dislocated kneecap, Gargano was unable to get to his feet by the referee’s count of 10. Ciampa, though, merely rolled off the stage and barely onto his feet to score the win and successful title defense. Winner and Still NXT Championship: Tommaso Ciampa

Match Rating- A: What another great match! This was brutal and either Gargano is legitimately hurt or he’s a damn good seller. This should be their final encounter and they should move on to someone else.

Overall Rating: A- This was another great NXTTakeover special as all matches deliver. Below are the top 3 matches of the night for me.